Nepalese Children's Education Fund

Students need a home environment that encourages them to study and learn while they are away from school. They spend a majority of their time with their parents and siblings at home. However, most of our students’ home environments are not conducive for being a student. Many things that we take for granted (e.g., a desk to work at, light so that we can work after sunset, and time to focus on being a student) are absent in Nepal. A major concern is that families do not systematically carve out time for their children to complete homework and study for exams. This reality demands that we develop creative solutions, and we need to create solutions that are minimally intrusive, sustainable, and mindful of the limited resources of NGOs.

In Sunsari, we are currently supporting ten students who face an array of difficult challenges.

• Four are landless squatters.
• Five are girls (as girl child, they are expected to help with the housework).
• Nine are from a low caste or are considered untouchables.
• Two are from single-parent homes (their mothers are widowers).
• Six do not have a literate parent or guardian at home to guide them in their study and learning.

Their backgrounds are such that the odds of completing school are stacked against them. It is likely that these students will often struggle at school to catch up with their peers who are more fortunate.

Currently, NCEF provides financial assistance to students to cover their school fees and costs for necessary books and supplies. NCEF, however, does not provide financial assistance to the landless squatters so that they can build homes and afford electricity at nights for the students to study. Nor does it have volunteers to visit the homes of our scholarship recipients to help them with homework every evening. For most of our students, education stops when the bell rings at school.

Recognizing these adversities, our volunteers went above and beyond their duties by developing a creative strategy to foster a culture of opportunity for studying in partnership with the students’ school. The volunteers in Sunsari came up with a zero-cost plan that would make it a little bit easier for NCEF students to complete with homework and assignments. Leveraging the fact that NCEF is viewed as an organization that works with deserving children and has their best interest at heart, as well as the fact that it is the largest single source of funding to the school in the form of school fees, NCEF volunteers were able to create an after-school program in partnership with the Sunsari school. The school now offers an additional hour of schooling every day for children who could benefit from extra help. With this arrangement, after the bell rings, the students gather in a classroom and work on assignments guided by one of the teachers from the school.

This story is just one example of how the passion and creativity of our volunteers guide our work in Nepal. NCEF is comprised of individuals that will go above and beyond to assist deserving students. However, our efforts are not possible without your generous contributions. Please visit this page to read the profile of our students in Sunsari and other areas in Nepal: http://www.nepalchildren.org/children/

Filed under: September 2008 on December 31st, 2010 | No Comments »

NCEF provides financial assistance that enables many poor Nepalese children to attend school. Many children in Nepal—especially, the ones in rural areas—need financial assistance to continue their education. Due to limited resources, NCEF cannot support all the students that apply for financial assistance (through our area coordinators). Every year, the task of the selection committee is to identify the most needy students who would be supported by NCEF.

The Team:

The student selection committee for the year 2009-2010 consisted of the following members.

• Uttam Sharma (Chair)
• Bigyan Acharya
• Bhusan Neupane
• Hari Tripathi
• Laura Satkamp
• Maheshwor Kafle

Figure 1: NCEF’s areas of operation in Nepal

Procedure:

We collected applications for renewal of financial assistance from Dolakha, Kathmandu, Kavre, Rasuwa, Nepalgunj and Patan. This year NCEF decided to support additional students in Dolakha, and also include Birgunj, Lamatar, and Sunsari as new areas of operation. Several children from these areas applied to be considered for financial assistance for the first time.

Our first task was to define the criteria for student selection. These criteria can be viewed at http://www.nepalchildren.org/selection_criteria.html. Next, we designed the application forms for renewal as well as new students (available for download at http://www.nepalchildren.org/about.html#apps ).

We sent the application forms to our field volunteers in Nepal. Field volunteers distributed the new applications to schools as well as to the parents.  They also distributed the renewal applications to all students that received financial assistance during the previous year.

Field volunteers collected the applications and academic transcripts from schools. They scanned all these documents, and emailed them to NCEF selection committee. For each renewal applicant, they also provided their recommendation on whether or not NCEF should continue funding the student.  After receiving all the applications from an area, they were distributed to all the selection committee members.

The Selection Process:

NCEF’s financial resources and the availability of field volunteers determine the number of students selected from each area. For each area, every selection committee member ranks all the applicants based on their application and the recommendations from field volunteers. Average of this ranking is calculated for each student and  top candidates from this list are selected for financial assistance.  Ties were resolved through discussion and voting amongst the selection committee members. If certain renewal applications require special consideration, we review such applications carefully, often interacting with the field volunteers for additional information and document any requirements that are waived.

Results:

All together we selected 64 students. Some of the renewal applications were for students who had passed the SLC examination. These decisions could not be made until after the SLC examination results were declared, and hence, were made separately from the rest of the students.

One student required special consideration for funding approval. Under NCEF requirement, a student has to pass their final grade exam in order to be eligible for renewal of funding. This student failed the final exam. However, after careful analysis of the situation, and strong recommendation from the student’s teachers and field volunteer, the selection committee decided to fund the student who now has an opportunity to improve his/her grades. The student has been given formal notice that the funding is contingent upon demonstrated improvement of his/her study.

Figure 2: Breakdown of supported students in each area

Figure 3: Number of supported male and female students

Challenges:

One of the main challenges that selection committee faced this year was the inability to collect complete applications from Nepal on time. Most of the time, applications were incomplete, and some did not have academic reports. For renewal students we did not receive the applications of all students from each geographical location all at once. These problems led to the delay in student selection. The selection committee had to review the applications on an ongoing basis. This made the process challenging to get the ranking and review from all selection committee members on time.

Recommendations:

The main cause of delay for selection had been the applications not getting to the selection committee on time. Another issue is the veracity of the income levels reported in the new student applications. To the best of our knowledge, the field volunteers can rely only on the income level reported by the student’s family when filling out the application forms. In general, almost all our student applicants are from poor families and deserving of NCEF support. Unfortunately, since we cannot support all our applicants and family’s income is an important criterion for selection, NCEF is in the process of addressing this issue by developing more comprehensive and context-specific surveys to collect household resources.

Acknowledgments:

The selection committee would like to thank all the NCEF volunteers for collecting and sending student applications.

Filed under: September 2008 on March 4th, 2010 | No Comments »